Community Indicators: Parking

Measuring Our Progress with Community Indicators

Community Indicators are a way for us to track and share progress on our community's vision within each of our five focus areas. Data for the indicators may be impacted by City initiatives or actions, but are also influenced by the broader community.

For each indicator, the gauge highlights progress toward our goal, and areas to learn more or focus more attention. Right now, the goals are general (ex. increase). Over time we expect to identify more specific targets, where appropriate.

Citizen satisfaction with their involvement in City decision making

Olympia's Comprehensive Plan's value statements emphasize public participation: "The City of Olympia places a high priority on engaging citizens early and often and regularly demonstrates how the voices of the community are heard...Olympia engages the public in major decisions through a variety of methods...Because of this, the City has built trust with the community."

This indicator is based on a statistically-valid survey of Olympia residents, which asks people who state they've participated in a City planning or decision-making process to rate their experience. Respondents may be influenced by many factors regarding the quality of their experience, potentially including the frequency of opportunities, notification, convenience, ease of providing input, whether they felt heard and outcome of the process.

A 2014 city-wide survey asked respondents to rate their neighborhood, overall, as a desirable place to live: Excellent, Very Good, Satisfactory, Fair, or Poor. 85% rated their neighborhood Excellent or Very Good. In 2017, a city-wide survey asked respondents to rate Olympia as a place to live. 75% rated it as Excellent or Very Good.

Peak hour weekday parking occupancy (%)

Maintaining a balance of parking for customers, residents and employees is a strong contributer to a vibrant downtown, and is a priority in Olympia's Downtown Strategy. A 2015 survey of downtown businesses identified the availability of convenient parking as one of the top two issues for their customers.

The number of people visiting, living and working downtown. May be affected by perceptions of safety.
The number and location of parking spaces on-street and in private and public parking lots, as well as their cost and length of time available. Convenient alternative ways to visit downtown, including bicycling, walking and transit.

The City of Olympia manages on-street parking and several downtown parking lots. Short-term parking is prioritized for on-street parking in core retail areas, so these spaces are primarily available to downtown business customers.

Long-term parking is provided on streets near the edges of downtown, as well as public and private parking lots, to serve employees and visitors. Residents in older buildings without internal parking may obtain permits to park on-street or in City-owned parking lots. Parking for residents has typically been provided within new residential developments, though it is not currently required.

The City enforces parking rules on weekdays between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Private parking lots generally enforce their rules throughout the week.

The City is updating its Parking Strategy in 2018. The update will address all aspects of parking in the downtown and other areas of the City.

In 2018, the City began transitioning to a new parking management software system, which was expected to provide data. Visual counts were therefore not conducted in 2018. However, the software did not perform as expected, so data is not available for 2018. Visual counts will resume in 2019.

The City conducts visual counts of on-street parking occupancy every three months. Counts are conducted four times per weekday. The peak time for parking is the last count each day, at 4:45 p.m. Maintaining parking occupancy between 70 and 85% has been shown to be optimal for efficient use of on-street parking.

Condition of City infrastructure

Maintaining Olympia's infrastructure in good condition is vital to the health, safety and economic vitality of the community. Our community relies upon our infrastructure for the safe and efficient movement of people and goods, safe and reliable drinking water and the protection of public health, property and the environment.

The condition of City infrastructure is influenced by age, expected life, level of maintenance, degree of use and many other factors. The level of financial investment in maintenance, rehabilitation and replacement of aging infrastructure is critical.

The City's goal is to maximize the life of our infrastructure at the lowest cost while meeting our citizen's expectations for service. We do this by:

Maintaining an inventory of all City infrastructure

Regularly rating the condition of all infrastructure

Implementing efficient preventative maintenance programs

Implementing rehabilitation projects to extend the life of assets

Replacing infrastructure at the end of its useful life

Continually looking for lower cost, innovative solutions

Despite our best efforts, some areas do not have sufficient funding to maintain the amount of assets we currently have. The most notable areas are in street maintenance (overall rating of C-plus, or "fair"), bridge maintenance (overall rating of C-plus, or "fair") and building repair (overall rating of B with much lower ratings in older buildings). In response, the City continues to explore revenue options, further efficiencies where feasible and pursuit of grant funding.

Continued decline in the condition of these assets will result in more costly repairs in the future.

Each category of infrastructure is inspected, rated and scored on a regular basis. The rating is converted to a letter grade, A - F (A=excellent, B=good, C=fair, D=poor, F=unacceptable). The overall grade is an average across all infrastructure categories.

City-owned sites with contaminated soil cleaned up (%)

We measure and report on this indicator because properties with contaminated soil or groundwater can harm human health and the environment. Soil or groundwater on previously-used properties may be contaminated by oil or gas products, chemicals, or other contaminants that leaked or were disposed of improperly by previous property owners, businesses or residents.

These contaminants can remain present in the soil for many years, or move through the soil in groundwater - sometimes reaching streams or Puget Sound - affecting the health of humans, fish, plants and wildlife.

The process of cleaning up historically-contaminated sites is governed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and WA Dept of Ecology. Federal and state laws and rules set standards for cleanup of each type of contaminant. Previous property owners responsible for contamination can be liable for the cost of cleanup, which can be very expensive. Site cleanup can involve years of work to identify and clean up contaminants.

The City of Olympia owns ten sites with known soil or groundwater contaminants from previous uses of those properties, or nearby properties whose contaminants flowed under the City-owned sites in groundwater. Two of those sites - Olympia City Hall and the Hands-On Children's Museum - have been certified by Ecology as cleaned up to required standards.

The City has completed assessments of historic documents and some on-site exploration to assess the contamination on seven of the City's remaining eight contaminated sites. The seventh site, the City's Maintenance Center, is scheduled for an assessment in 2019.
Portions of three of the City's seven assessed sites have been cleaned up.Additional funds are being sought to clean up the remaining portions of those sites.

The City's Downtown Strategy recommends collaborating with private property owners to seek grants for cleanup of downtown properties.
The City has a consultant that performs detailed research to identify previous property owners that may be responsible for past contamination. When evidence clearly identifies their responsibility, that party pays for cleanup costs.
The City will be seeking grants in 2019 to help complete additional assessments.

We measure the percentage of City-owned sites that have been fully cleaned up per required standards. The City also works with owners of contaminated properties to clean up those properties through the land use and building permit process. However, information is not available to identify all properties in Olympia that may be contaminated.

Amount of City located within 1/2 mile of a park or open space (%)

This indicator highlights the importance of easily accessible green spaces and the community and environmental benefits they provide. Having a park or open space within a short distance from one's home provides a convenient place to exercise, to take the kids to play, to walk the dog or to experience a bit of nature within the city. It gives people an opportunity to visit their local park or open space without having to drive. Parks and open spaces serve as community gathering places, as well as contribute to a neighborhood's character and sense of place.

This indicator is primarily influenced by the number and location of parks and open spaces within Olympia's inventory. It is also influenced by the location of park access points in relation to the City's street network. Both of these influences are factors the Olympia Parks, Arts and Recreation Department incorporates into its long-range planning and acquisition strategy.

The 2016 Parks, Arts and Recreation Plan calls for the acquisition of ten new combination neighborhood parks/open spaces. The plan calls for a total of 417 acres of land acquisition. Five acquisitions totaling 343 acres are planned for by 2021.

The City is also exploring creating new park access points in cases where this will make the park walking-distance to substantially more residences.

Utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping software, we annually map our park system to determine what percentage of the City is located within 1/2 mile of a park or open space. Each year, through acquisitions and development of new park access points, we strive to increase the percentage of the City that is within a 1/2 mile.